Here we go then. 24 hours of virtually non-stop blogging to raise money for Cancer Research UK.
These are the 10 rules / facts:
1. All content will be created and published during the 24 hours. There will be no pre-scheduled blog posts (except for 1 exception at 13.00 GMT today whilst we have some lunch) In fact right now we have only a couple of ideas of what we're going to be writing.
2. Posts won’t be cropping up every 5 minutes as we’ll searching for great new music, listening to it and researching the artist if they are unknown to us. We're not planning ahead that much. In fact this is where most time will be spent – writing the post is the end output. That takes the shortest amount of time. We'll probably also be featuring a few tracks that hit our in box over the last few days that we wanted to write about but just didn't have spare time. Today we have lots of time.
We might hit the wall (pictured above) at some point. If we do there's always the possibility of us writing a post about cooking or household chores instead. You've been warned.
3. Any music posted that comes to us via the email in-box from a PR company or band directly will not simply be a copy and paste of a press release. We will write our own content, just like we always have done.
4. We will only post music that we like. Unless we get desperate and run out, in which case we reserve the right to delete this rule and post any old crap.
5. Not every post will be a new music post. We’ll be breaking up the ‘churnover’ with discussion pieces and anything else that takes our fancy.
6. Not every post will be as long as our normal posts. Particularly at 4.30am. We reserve the right to just bash out a couple of lines and then upload.
7. If you are a PR company or band and we like something you send us and we feature it, it would be great if you would donate a couple of quid using the buttons below. Is this bribery? If it is we really don’t care, after all it’s for a good cause.
8. We’ll occasionally tweet about what we’re doing (maybe even tweeting a picture of our lunch if we get REALLY bored) using the #blogathon. All posts should automatically load to twitter. Please don't unfollow us on Twitter if we're posting too much - instead divert your annoyance by sponsoring us. (We won't be tweeting that much anyway, we'll be busy finding music and writing about it).
9. We will be having breaks. We have to cook, eat and go to the toilet (although we’re thinking a 3am takeaway delivery might be fun – we’re looking at you Kens Kebabs!). Also to avoid RSI we’ll be taking occasional 15 minute rests to exercise our hands and walk around a bit - but we'll probably still be listening to music whilst we do that.
10. Whilst we’re doing all this blogging, if you haven’t already done so, you will give us money, which goes directly to Cancer Research UK. THAT IS THE RULE.
Donate using the button below or this link. Thank you.
A few personal words from Robin Seamer, author of Breaking More Waves:
“A few years ago my dad, Colin, passed away due to cancer – a terrible illness that affects many people around the world. As time has passed I’ve realised that I’ve never really done anything in connection with it so at the end of last year thought I’d put this blog to some real use and try to raise some money for charity by doing a sponsored 24 hour blogathon.
Compared with some of the incredible sponsored activities some people do, like running a marathon or sailing across the world single-handed, staying up all night to complete an activity isn’t that hard, particularly if you’re young and have no responsibilities other than yourself. However, for me this is quite a challenge – I’m not young for a start. Also like many parents I’m pretty much permanently knackered; ‘a ‘lay in’ for me is anything more than 7 hours sleep. I’m beginning this blogathon after a week of work , 2 kids to look after and have prepared for it in the worst way possible -by getting in late at night after going to a gig in Brighton yesterday, driving home past midnight afterwards and then getting up early in the morning to pack the kids off to school. So I’m starting this on 5 and a half hours sleep. That should make it more interesting later.
Thankfully I’m not doing this blogathon alone.
For over in Norwich another music blogger, Adam from Alphabet Bands is joining me also blogging for 24 hours non-stop.
We’re starting at exactly 10am GMT this morning and at that time I’ll be publishing a pre-scheduled post explaining exactly what I’ll be doing over the next 24 hours with a set of our own self-applied rules. If you subscribe to my twitter feed (here) or get the blog content in some form of subscription service such as RSS I’ll try not to overload you; there won’t be posts published every 15 minutes, it will be a little bit slower than that. Remember this is a marathon / blogathon not a sprint and if I go at it like a bull in a china shop not only will I exhaust my brain but I’ll quite probably run out of ideas for content.
The Important Bit
Breaking More Waves is a fully unfunded music blog – it’s proudly independent, both in the thoughts expressed and in its lack of financial dependence from the likes of advertising. The independent web is important to me – I’m beholden to nobody. What I decide to write about, when and how I decide to write are my choices alone. Over the last 5 years I’ve kept to this ethos and put a lot of effort in (nearly 2000 posts) for no financial reward - just the fun of doing it.
But for the next 24 hours I want your cash – not for me – but for Cancer Research UK. Think of it like this; over the course of the last 5 years I’ve spent several months of my life creating this blog and not been paid a penny. For the next 24 hours I’d like some money for that, and that money to go to help fighting Cancer. Please donate – you can give as little as £2 using the buttons below. It would mean a lot to me. Thank you”
Breaking More Waves sponsored 24 hour blogathon starts at 10.00am. Please sponsor using the links or buttons below:
Breaking More Waves sponsorship link
Alphabet Bands sponsorship link
Or use this button
This tune seems appropriate:
Felix Cartal - No Sleep (feat. Natalie Angiuli)
“The Sundays have reformed,” we screamed as we sprung up from our laptop and hit our head on the ceiling with the force of elated excitement late last year. Pressing play with a nervous twitch we came back to earth with a heavy bump. This wasn’t the angel tones of Harriet Wheeler, who with her band had produced quite possibly the perfect English indie pop album (Reading, Writing & Arithmetic); a record so alluring that every time we thought of it, let alone played it, we drifted into a dreamy world of beguiling guitars, shuffling rhythms and one of the most oh so sweet voices we’d ever heard, not to come up until someone shouted very loudly in our face. The band in question was The Sun Days from Sweden and having shaken ourselves out of our disappointment we declared their tune You Can’t Make Me Make Up My Mind a pretty decent indie track; BUT IT WASN’T THE SUNDAYS WAS IT?
But having this attitude to music and rejecting bands because they’re not the same as a long term addiction that you can’t shake off is a bit like being in bed and telling your current girlfriend or boyfriend that your ex used to do ‘it’ a different way and it felt much better when he / she did it. This is not a good idea. So when a new track from The Sun Days popped up on line a day or so ago we decided to start behaving, pressed play and forgot about the past. Which is odd because Don’t Need To Be Them has an old-school indie sensibility to it which could have come from a time when words like fanzines, C-86, Postcard Records and Sarah Records meant something to hooded anorak music loving geeks. What the tune also has besides that nostalgic kick is a sweet sing your heart out pop melody, a joyous hook, jangles a plenty and something that for four minutes of your miserable life makes nothing else matter.
The Sun Days are Elsa Holmgren on vocal duty, Simon Boontham on guitar, Johan Ramnebrink on bass, Joe Enocsson also on guitar and Erik Bjarnar on drums. Their Facebook commands you to ‘dance or die’. No need to build a coffin, The Sun Days are keeping indie-pop well and truly alive.
The Sun Days - Don't Need To Be Them
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Oh hold on. Let’s not worry about that stuff. Let’s listen to the song. It’s actually pretty good. Sure the chorus sounds like the sort of thing Katy Perry or Rihanna might bash out, but it’s good isn’t it? Very good. The Blog Sound of 2014 poll topper shows what she’s about. Ignore the hype, forget the buzz, yes it’s very zeitgeisty but it’s pretty stratospheric.
Banks - Brain
